NEWS

By STEPHANIE GUNTER
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL – On Feb. 1, 1960, four black freshmen from N.C. Agricultural & Technical University in Greensboro sat at the all-white Woolworth’s lunch counter on South Elm Street and waited for service. What happened in the following days challenged public accommodation customs and laws in North Carolina.

"February One," a documentary about the Greensboro sit-in, will be screened in a free public showing at 7 p.m. Feb. 2 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History and curriculum in women’s studies will sponsor the event at 7 p.m. in 08 Gardner Hall. Steve Channing and Rebecca Cerese, the film’s director and producer, respectively, will be available after the screening for questions.

"When we talk about the civil rights movement, people tend not to focus on North Carolina," said Dr. Joseph Jordan, center director. "But North Carolina continued to be a site of struggle during that era. It is important, because in many ways the method for protest that took place here served as a blueprint for other nonviolent civil rights protest."

Dr. Barbara Harris, chair of the women’s studies curriculum, said that although the film is primarily about four young men, its emphasis on expanding rights and social justice mirrors her discipline. "The feminist movement and women’s studies grew out of and alongside the civil rights movement," she said. "I thought our students from both points of view should see this film."

She noted points in the film showing that women played a role in the sit-in.

"On one of the days that they were sitting in, some young white women from (then) Greensboro Women’s College joined them," Harris said. "At the end of the day, the black men worried about what would happen to these women when they left, because there were mobs outside. So they formed a military square and walked them out."

In another scene, she said, "an older white woman comes in and puts her hand on one of the sit-in fellows’ hands and says, ‘What took you so long?’ "

The film offers firsthand accounts and rare archival footage, including interviews with the three remaining members of the group and their friends and family members. The four were Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and the late David Richmond. Young actors appear in scenes re-creating the event.

The film, which premiered last year, has been awarded the Human Rights Award from the River Run Festival in Winston-Salem and an award for excellence from the Global Peace Festival in Orlando, Fla. For more information, visit www.februaryonedocumentary.com or contact the Stone Center at (919) 962-9001.

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(Gunter, of Raleigh, is a senior majoring in journalism and mass communication.)

Contact: Jennifer Ramirez, (919) 962-0395, jramirez@email.unc.edu
News Services Contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu